Choosy

My latest column for Visual Thesaurus, "Multiple Choice," looks at the ways marketers use choose and choice. Access is restricted to subscribers; here's a free taste:

When it isn't signifying "autonomy," choice may be a marketer's code word for "specialness." One of Pepsi Cola's most famous ad campaigns, which ran from 1984 to 1991 and starred Michael Jackson, was "The Choice of a New Generation." (Translation: Hello, young person! Why would someone as hip as you drink a stodgy, old-fashioned soda like the one that rhymes with Shmoka-Shmola?) "Natural" choices bloomed in the 1990s, when unnatural choices fell out of favor: You could choose Natural Choice pet food, funerary urns, disposable diapers, non-dairy creamer, chemical preservatives, coated paper, or cheese.

Choice is most flattering in its adjectival sense — select, superior, elite. That's how we're meant to perceive Ohio-based Choice Brands ("a wholesale appliance distributor for Brands of Choice"), Choice Hotels International (an economy-to-mid-market chain that, naturally, offers a Choice Privileges program), and President's Choice, Canada's largest private-label brand (food and consumer products, mostly, but also financial services). With President's Choice, we get a double whammy of elite-ness: If the president (of the company) chose it, it must be really special! But here's a little secret: All of these Choices are wishful thinking. Truly elite brands never broadcast "elite" in their names.

Check out the article, and the rest of Visual Thesaurus, here.

Comments

[Tim H]

With canned and frozen fruit, "choice" means very good but not the best; the best fruit is "fancy"

[JB]

I get annoyed at retail ads that say something like "pants or skirt, your choice! Just $9.99"

I can't help thinking - of course it is my choice, you idiot. Do you think I would pay the $10 and let you choose which I get?

[Duchesse]

Dad always corrected the usage, "You have two choices". (Choice implies at least two options.)

If there were more than two options he would say, for example, "You have a choice of four options". Was Dad right?

[Nancy Friedman]

Duchesse: According to Merriam-Webster's Dictionary of English Usage (1994), your father's interpretation of "choice" is a "folk belief ... which seems to rest on the notion that _choice_ has but a single meaning ... We have been unable to find such a concern expressed in our collection of usage books." Indeed, the "choice" of "multiple choice" (or "multiple-choice test") is synonymous with "option." MWDEU concludes: "You can use this sense if you need to. It is standard."